Bedbugs don't live IN wood - however they can live ON wood or within crevases such as screw holes.

The simplest and least toxic way to get rid of bedbugs is by applying high heat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedbug#Infestations

I've heard in hot climates people put beds in salt water (eg: the ocean) for a few days to get rid of bedbugs. Might be worth looking into.

I would inspect anything you buy. They can be hard to spot sometimes because they are small. Blow dryer on high setting can work on smaller items. Any kind of clothing/fabrics can be put in a hot dryer for 15 minutes.

I had bedbugs once (probably picked them up in a hostel), and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I somehow managed to get rid of them without spending tons of money on an exterminator, using products like Kleen Free and Perma-Guard Fossil Shell Flour/Diatomaceous Earth. Kleen Free should work on any wooden furniture if you spray/wipe it down well. Diatomaceous Earth is good for carpet and upholstered furniture, as you can just vacuum it up. Also, high heat does work, as well as extreme cold I believe.

I have bought secondhand furniture since then, and it always makes me paranoid. Bedbugs aren't common around here (Tennessee), and I like to think that people who have them would toss their furniture instead of selling it/giving it away, so I've taken my chances. But I know they're a huge problem in NY so I would definitely go the better-safe-than-sorry route and use as many methods as possible to make sure the furniture is bedbug-free. I would hate to ever have to suffer through them again!

My husband used to work for an exterminator in the South. He had nightmares about bed bugs. We watched an episode of Hoarders once, and the family's house was covered in bedbugs. My husband just kept saying they needed to burn the whole house down and start over, because they can live in walls and lie dormant for months in the cold.

My advice would be to leave any questionable furniture outside and get an exterminator to look at it. I know that sounds extreme and may not be "enviromentally friendly," but who really wants to live with bedbugs?

We use craigslist all the time and I'm paranoid about it too. This is what we do--we look the person in the eye and ask if they have bedbugs. I think people tell the truth and if you're looking at them, it's harder to lie.

As you said, it's a special kind of someone who would sell infested furniture in the first place. That said, if they don't know they have them, this method is no good at all.

We wash everything upholstered too of course. Not sure that actually kills them...

this sounds a little paranoid. Why couldn't stuff be in new items as well? I mean obviously if something is grossly dirty I'd worry, but I've bought used stuff for years and never had any sort of trouble.

there's really no way to prevent them.

we have an infestation from our gross neighbors in our old apartment. the only way we got rid of them was leaving most of our large furniture behind, leaving our boxes in storage for 3-4 months and bombing the hell out of our leftover belongings.

btw...this may sound drastic, but we actually had a pre-planned cross country move, so it was an inconvenient infestation that happened at a convenient time.

i do know that pest control specialists even have a hard time getting rid of these guys.

best thing i can say is inspect every inch of a piece. the craigslist seller may think you're crazy, and possibly be a bit offended...but it's for your own good.

they especially love the underside of couches (inside the mesh underneath and the base of furniture legs), joints of bedposts, inside your boxspring and baseboards.

hope that helps...it was the single worst apartment happening we had and i would never wish it on anyone!!!!

I've seen bedbug spray in hardware stores around NYC, but I haven't checked out what the ingredients are. I've heard diatomaceous earth works, and heat for items that can go into a dryer - 10 minutes on high is a good preventative. For furniture it's always a gamble. Wood and hard materials are safer - but definitely check out the nooks and crannies in full light before bringing home and inside. Gone are the days of picking up freebies from the sidewalks.

I never knew they really existed til like a year ago from a post here and they've seemed like mostly a NY problem. But on the news the other day there was a whole "bedbugs are back in Houston" story. Course, I missed the story, so that was no help. It sounds horrible and costly trying to get rid of them and it does make you paranoid about buying second hand.

Marlo, how does one put a bed in the ocean? Wouldn't that ruin it?

if you've already been through this once, it's odd that you'd consider risking it again.

there are several bits of incorrect advice above. you need to logon to bedbugger.com and start searching advice from exterminators who specialize in bed bugs.

no otc "bedbug" spray is going to help. you need specific treatments for the eggs, then separate chemicals for the adults. both of these have to make direct physical contact. bombs do not work on bedbugs. they irritate them into breaking camp and moving around the structure - thereby setting up multiple smaller camps from which to continue multiplying.

people can say they've been buying used furniture for years without a problem b/c bedbugs have only resurged in the past decade. therefore, not a relevant comment now that bedbugs have firmly reestablished themselves in north america.

having an exterminator inspect a piece of furniture will cost money, which must diminish the bargain price somewhat, if not entirely.

since you've already had bb, you must already know this.

Abstain is the only way to be totally sure, but if you must, wrap your mattress in a rubber pillowcase

It's a horrible thing to risk, but some of us can't afford to buy new items. I mean, a kitchen chair from Target can cost $100.

I have never had bedbugs, but am an extreeemely paranoid person. I still buy used stuff, but worry about it.

There's a thing called a Pack-tite that's the size of a suitcase that you can buy that heats things to a temp that would kill the bugs, but that wouldn't work with furniture because it would be too big.

You can also inspect furniture for bed bug "dirt" which looks kind of like ink from a marker - you can see pics of it online.

The thing is -- it seems you're just as likely to get bedbugs from a hotel as you are form buying something used, and no one ever suggests that people stop staying at hotels -- they just say be careful and inspect for any sign of bedbugs, which I think also applies to used furniture.

That said, if I lived in NY I'm not sure I would continue my used furniture habit.

A few uninvited guests came back with me after staying in a hostel in Sydney. They arrived in my checked luggage that I stored under my bunk. To get rid of them I placed EVERYTHING in a few large sealing tubs (tupperware, totes, etc) and placed them outside in the sun for a few days. The combination of heat and no air took care of everything. Then I put what I could in the laundry. I have not even had a bite or seen a bug since I've been back.

FYI you can be bit and not show any signs until a few nights (bites!) later. Also they can be FAST (like ants) by the time you feel a bite, jump out of bed and flip on a light, they will be back in their hiding spots.

Last year, I caught bedbugs from a boyfriend who lived in a gross apartment building in Las Vegas. We washed anything fabric in hot water and ran the dryer on high heat, and kept things away from the bed or floor. We steam cleaned the carpets, and picked up anything off the floor we thought they could hide in or under. Then we bought a sack of Diatomaceous Earth online, and dusted the whole place by filling a sock with it, tying it off, and tapping it on all the surfaces. Yes, it sucked living in that powdery world, but even after a few days the bites stopped. After a couple weeks, we cleaned up all the powder, and just powdered the edges of the room, the mattress under the sheets, and around the posts that touch the floor (renewed every 2 weeks since.) We made sure there were no bridges to the bed without crossing that powder barrier - no bed skirt, nothing touching the walls - in order to get to us, they had to cross the powder, and it would kill them. Haven't seen a trace of them since! It was a total nightmare, but it all worked out in the end.

Don't stop buying used furniture - it's good for your wallet and the environment. Just take a flashlight and inspect the seams and dark places to avoid major infestations. Then before you take it inside, dust all the nooks and crannies just to be sure (with the sock bag) and hope for the best!

more misleading advice. experts warn that diamataceaous earth is toxic and should only be used in crevices, yoy're breathing it in and it's function is cutting, inc. the soft tissue in your lungs. in some people, it causes a sever allergic reaction. like a potentially fatal asthma attack.

look at this photo from nyt's bedbug section and see if you think you could spot this bug by looking with your own eyes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/nyregion/27bugs.html?_r=1

there are the eggs which are glued down, the nymphs which are almost clear and the adults which are clear and flat as a sheet of paper unless fed.

leave it to the experts. and stop buying anything if you're nervous.

If your luggage had bed bugs, doesn't that mean you may have given bed bugs to all the other luggage and the luggage handlers?

Roaches are just as insidious, yet we don't get this worked up about them.

I had bed bugs in my barracks when I was in the Navy. Very naively, I had always thought them a myth before that. I wouldn't have even noticed them but for the little blood stains from where I was rolling over and squashing them in my sleep. (Disgusting, right?) My modest recommendation is to look for small red stains on the upholstery.

Cally, roaches don't bite.

I second the Diatomaceous Earth. It's a miracle.

"because they can live in walls and lie dormant for months in the cold."

Correction. Bed bugs can live up to 18 months without a blood feast. They are truly evil, and I won't mess with them.

"Why couldn't stuff be in new items as well?"

Good point. When I lived in Bushwick, there were mattress bootleggers who paid tramps to round up the old discarded mattresses on trash day and bring them to their factory. The mattresses were wrapped with new fabric, but sometimes bedbugs survived. That's what my landlord told me. He said to watch out for those places, because the girl downstairs got them that way (maybe.)

Lot of incorrect info going on here.

Full disclosure - I had bedbugs after a neighbor beneath me bought some furniture that she inspected and then cleaned with boiling water from craigslist.

This was the most painful horrible experience of my life. Not only did i have to live in a toxic mess with creatures that chewed me up at night, I had to throw away a lot of what I owned. Do people understand that in NYC, your landlord has the right to come in with exterminators and spray everything you own, whether it was my puppy's bed to kitchen stuff - everything? They spread like wildfire from apt to apt.

You won't be able to spot them yourself. And if you are that selfish, and that foolish, I wish that I could say great, go do it in your space. But it's not really that simple, as I spent thousands of dollars getting rid of these because someone else was too cheap or too "green" to go get themselves something not covered in bugs.

Sorry for the rant. I think it's just too easy to speculate whether its okay until you understand the depth and breadth of the issue.

THANK YOU konar.

Really, this is a huge issue.

Konar, you make a huge point. I also live in NY and I've often wanted to purchase things from from craigslist and flea markets or tag sales. However, I always wonder just how honest people are in this day and age when money is all some see/need. Sort of like every man for 'emself. Not everyone is honest and if there's a huge need for cash - well even nice trusting people trying to survive will turn on you.

I've never encountered these lil creatures and I'm terrified of ever coming in contact w/them. Scares me! I also, live in a building and whose to say what happened to you - can't happen to me or others? It's too real and from what I've heard costly. That's not even realizing I'd have to get rid of things and have chemicals sprayed all over my place! I have pets too and I don't allow the monthly exterminator in my apt. for the last 18 years since I've never had a bug problem.

Ugh, this whole topic scares me! I just can't imagine the horrors many have had to go through with this.

A month after we moved back to Brooklyn, I woke up at 4 am with itchy welts all over my legs, arms and one side of my face. We turned the mattress and found just three little "husks," the shells the bugs shed when they mature, smaller than, but similar to a single sesame seed.

After consulting bedbugger and the NYT article, we laundered everything in the apartment (and I do mean EVERYTHING) that could withstand high heat in the dryer, put non-washable items in the dryer for 15 minutes or more, put all non-essentials in vacuum sealed bags stored in airtight plastic bins. I maniacally vacuumed and used the blow dryer on every surface, then my boyfriend dusted with diatomaceous earth.

Since I have asthma and can't be around anything that might trigger an episode, we took the dog and went to stay with friends in Vermont. My friend's toddler burst into tears when he saw me, with my bloodied bites, right eye swollen shut and lopsided face. Now, bedbug free for months, we're still anxious at night (bedbugs usually feast in the wee hours). Your bed should be the one place you feel safe and relaxed no matter what, but that's no longer true for us, and it's no joke, folks.